Ungit's Character, Role, and Meaninig in C. S. Lewis's Christian Framework of Till We Have Faces Crnogorac, Petar Master's thesis / Diplomski rad 2016 Degree Grantor / Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: University of Zadar / Sveučilište u Zadru Permanent link / Trajna poveznica: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:162:756179 Rights / Prava: In copyright Download date / Datum preuzimanja: 2021-09-25 Repository / Repozitorij: University of Zadar Institutional Repository of evaluation works Sveučilište u Zadru Odjel za anglistiku Diplomski sveučilišni studij engleskog jezika i književnosti; smjer: nastavnički (dvopredmetni) Petar Crnogorac Ungit's Character, Role, and Meaning in C. S. Lewis's Christian Framework of Till We Have Faces Diplomski rad Zadar, 2016. Sveučilište u Zadru Odjel za anglistiku Diplomski sveučilišni studij engleskog jezika i književnosti; smjer: nastavnički (dvopredmetni) Ungit's Character, Role, and Meaning in C. S. Lewis's Christian Framework of Till We Have Faces Diplomski rad Student/ica: Mentor/ica: Petar Crnogorac Doc. dr. sc. Marko Lukić Zadar, 2016. Izjava o akademskoj čestitosti Ja, Petar Crnogorac, ovime izjavljujem da je moj diplomski rad pod naslovom Ungit's Character, Role, and Meaning in C.S. Lewis's Christian Framework of Till We Have Faces rezultat mojega vlastitog rada, da se temelji na mojim istraživanjima te da se oslanja na izvore i radove navedene u bilješkama i popisu literature. Ni jedan dio mojega rada nije napisan na nedopušten način, odnosno nije prepisan iz necitiranih radova i ne krši bilo čija autorska prava. Izjavljujem da ni jedan dio ovoga rada nije iskorišten u kojem drugom radu pri bilo kojoj drugoj visokoškolskoj, znanstvenoj, obrazovnoj ili inoj ustanovi. Sadržaj mojega rada u potpunosti odgovara sadržaju obranjenoga i nakon obrane uređenoga rada. Zadar, 8. rujan 2016. Crnogorac i Table of contents 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………....…... 1 2. Ungit’s character …………………………………………………………………………... 4 2.1. The context ………………………………………………………………………. 4 2.2. Ungit as hiding herself …………………………………………………………... 6 2.3. Jealous Ungit …………………………………………………………………….. 7 2.4. Ungit as a possessive devourer ……………………………………………….... 10 2.5. Ungit as a comforting figure …………………………………………………… 15 3. Ungit’s son the god of the Mountain as a real god/God ………………………...……… 17 4. Ungit’s role within the novel through Lewis’s Christian framework ……………………. 22 4.1. Ungit as the embodiment of mystery and enigma …………………...………… 22 4.2. Ungit as the fallen human nature, or Satan …………………………………….. 29 5. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………….. 31 6. Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………...… 33 Crnogorac 1 1. Introduction C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) is one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. The Irish-born author’s most famous work is The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of children’s book that turned to be a classic of fantasy literature. His other notable works in fiction include The Screwtape Letters and the Space Trilogy. Even though Lewis is known for using fiction to express his Christian ideas, he is no less important for writing theological books like Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain, where he explicitly discusses his views, and joins Christian apologetic efforts. Even though he wrote around 40 books in total, he managed to point out one of them and call it “far and away my best book” (qtd. in Gray 1) - his last novel Till We Have Faces. Written in 1956, the novel retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche. Lewis considered rewriting the myth since he was an undergraduate, planning to deepen the characters and change the “peculiar quality” of the story which he labeled as a compound of picaresque novel, horror comic, mystagogue’s tract, pornography, and stylistic experiment. (Till We Have Faces 313) He breathes in Christian themes and symbolism, once again using fiction to say something about the divine. Set up in a fictional pre-Christian city-state of Glome located not too far away from ancient Greece, the story is told from the perspective of Psyche’s sister Orual. Orual finds herself in society that believes in two gods: Ungit (Venus) as the main deity, and her son the god of the Mountain (Cupid). In belief that Ungit is jealous of Psyche’s beauty and of the worship she receives from the people, Psyche is offered as a sacrifice to the god of the Mountain. She ends up being married to the god of the Mountain, and Orual is also jealous of her. She manages to destroy their happiness, but as she sees herself as acting out of love and worry, she writes a book where she shifts the blame to the gods. Bartlett sees Orual’s book as “her defense of her actions and motivations in order to protect herself from the gods’ version that “threatened her [innermost] self-deception” (qtd. in Gray 22). At the end of the novel Crnogorac 2 Orual receives a series of visions that make her reconsider her actions, and the intention of the gods. It was already mentioned that Lewis uses fiction to portray his Christian ideas. In The Screwtape Letters he creates a conversation between two demons to describe his views of how Christian faith can be undermined. In The Space Trilogy he shows the futility of efforts to perfect the inherently sinful humanity without the grace of God. In The Chronicles of Narnia he portrays God as a beautiful and untamable Creator and Christ-like Savior of all life. Throughout all his works (fiction or non-fiction) Lewis motifs are the majesty and the nature of God, salvation through Christ, sin and Satan, meaning of pain in relation to God, etc. Therefore, it is clear to see that Lewis works inside a Christian framework, shaping his fiction and his characters in order to mirror the divine reality in which he believes in. In relation to that, it is important to read Till We Have Faces by using the framework Lewis himself established. The assumption of this thesis is that in Till He Have Faces Lewis does not simply tell a story of a pagan kingdom and pagan deities in order to engulf and entertain his readers; he does entertain, but just like in his other works, he is working inside his Christian framework, and the plot and the characters’ meanings can be properly understood only through this framework. And while the novel makes it relatively easy to grasp the meaning of the god of the Mountain inside Lewis’s Christian framework as he stands as a metaphor for the Christian God that is easily compared to Aslan the lion from The Chronicles of Narnia, it is not as welcoming to labeling Ungit. She is the most mysterious and the most confusing character in the novel. She is a real god, but also a product of superstitious beliefs and psychological needs of the people; she is devouring everything she touches but she also gives comfort; she is telling something about the real gods, but she is also their antagonist. Overall, she seems to be God and Satan at the same time, while still leaving doubt whether she is any of the two. Ungit is a source of real mystery in Lewis’s far and away best book, and that Crnogorac 3 makes her an extremely interesting character to investigate. Therefore, this thesis will engage the dilemmas embodied in Ungit in an attempt to resolve them and show Ungit’s place within Lewis’s Christian framework. Rather than choosing one Christian entity to stand behind Ungit, this thesis will try to show that the answer to interpreting Ungit is in a mixture of meanings. Lewis may be using a single character in order to depict the nature of God, the nature of Satan, and the sinful nature of humanity, and this thesis will try to prove that this mixture of meanings is the proper interpretation of Ungit. The context is Lewis’s Christian framework, and the methodology will composed of a direct text analysis of Till We Have Faces interpreted through the lens of other Lewis’s works, and helped by interpretations of other authors on the topic. This analysis will be divided into three parts. In the first part we will analyze the novel in order to describe Ungit in terms of character. We will find the character of Orual to be an important source of information as her actions and motives reflect Ungit’s. The most important reference will be Lewis’s The Four Loves; his analysis of types of loves will help us interpret relationships and motives of Ungit and Orual. In the second part we will investigate the role and the meaning of Ungit’s son the god of the Mountain because it is impossible to understand anything about the divine characters in the novel without properly interpreting him. The character of Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia will be crucial in this part because it reveals Lewis’s metaphorical habits. In the third part we will build on the findings on Ungit’s character and on interpretation of the god of the Mountain, and further analyze the novel to explore Ungit’s role and her meaning within Lewis’s novel and his Christian framework. Here we will draw on J.A. Whitmer in Place as Plot: A Comparison of the Use of Place in C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces and John Milton’s Paradise Lost where he provides insightful interpretations of Ungit. Crnogorac 4 2. Ungit’s character 2.1. The context The first part of the thesis will try to describe Ungit in terms of character. The source of information will be a text analysis of the novel, and the main interpretational tool will be Lewis’s book The Four Loves. But first we need to understand the development of the plot announced in the introduction.